The Yin and Yang of our Brain
The Yin and Yang of our Brain
Part of our Creative Writing Series
The West society of the USA, Europe, Canada, ie. the ‘West,’ has a culture of rational left-brain society. We value accomplishment in a linear way. When we learn to write in academia, the rational approach is taken. There is an idea, with an outline, a controlled idea that we push out in order logically from beginning to end. It is up to you to make it happen. This is a results-driven pushing outward, goal focused approach. The underlying message to this culture is: if we work hard and accomplish, we will achieve approval and be worthy of love.
Photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash
Creativity occurs in the right brain and is counter rational. People who are in touch with their intuition (meaning we all have intuition), don’t walk in a straight line. They work in spirals and squiggles, connecting random dots. In school, people who are naturally intuitive are taught the need to adjust to ‘normal,’ which is to walk in a straight line.
Rational writing is technical. What happens when this process is disrupted with a block? FEAR. How do we overcome fear? First let’s identify this process.
Fear causes us to go into fight, flight or freeze. We become guarded with a high alert status. We are afraid to speak, afraid of saying the wrong thing, of offending someone, and are in a mode of protection. SW Porges enlightened us on the Polyvagal theory explaining this process biologically. This theory proposes a mechanism for defenses that are biological in nature described above. Writing is public speaking, in written form. We become paralyzed with fear. What are writers most afraid of according to the research of R. Keith Sawyer in Explaining creativity: The science of human innovation? We fear the creative writing process that we first began writing with.
How do we get back to this? The answer is to find connection with ourselves; our spirit, soul, & body. This helps the wholeness of our being flow creatively naturally.